Hal Clement - Close to Critical

“Frankly, that relieves me. How about that suggestion—building a new ’scaphe?”

“I’m no engineer,” retorted Raeker, “but even I have a pretty good idea how long that would take, even with the experience from the first one to help. I am a biologist, and my considered opinion is that both those youngsters would be dead before another bathyscaphe could be made ready. If Rich and the Drommian want to try it, I wouldn’t discourage them; the new machine will be useful, and I might even be wrong about the time factors. However, I believe seriously that we will have to run this rescue along the lines already planned.”

“And the Drommian was right about those?”

“You mean, that we plan to get Nick’s people to make the repairs? Yes. It’s not as ridiculous as Aminadabarlee makes it sound. I’ve been bringing those people up for nearly sixteen years; they’re as intelligent as human beings, judging by their learning rate, and they could certainly splice a few wires.”

The officer looked doubtful.

“As long as they splice the right wires,” he muttered. “What will they use for insulation?”

“There’s a glue they make—I showed them how, after some experiment—from animal scales. We’ll have to make sure it’s a nonconductor, but I’m not greatly worried about that.”

“Even though you think there’s sulphuric acid in their body fluids?”

“I said, not greatly worried,” admitted Raeker. “The main problem right now is bringing the parties together. You’re sure you can’t get me a closer fix on the robot and the ’scaphe?”

“Quite sure. They’re putting out different wave lengths, and I have no means of finding the dispersion factor of the planet’s atmosphere in that part of the spectrum, let alone getting the precise depth of the atmosphere itself or cutting down the inherent uncertainty of radio directional measurements. The chances, as I told you, are about fifty-fifty that the two are within forty miles of each other, and about nine out of ten that they’re not over a hundred miles apart. Better than that I can’t do, without radiations neither machine is equipped to transmit.”

“All right. I’ll just have to get information from Easy, and try to match it in with Nick’s maps. At least, they don’t have to get too close under our guidance; Nick will be able to see the ’scaphe’s lights for miles.” The officer nodded, and the two fell silent, watching the live screen. Nothing could be seen in it; if Easy was awake, as she had said she would be, she was not in the control room. Occasionally the men could hear a faint bumping or scraping sound; presumably the ship was still being carried with a current, but no landmark had attracted the girl’s attention as being worth reporting.

Raeker finally went to sleep hi his chair. The officer stayed awake, but the only message he received was to the effect that Easy was going to sleep and Aminador-neldo was taking over the watch. Nothing excited him, either, it seemed; the speaker remained silent after the human girl signed off.

For hour after hour the bathyscaphe bumped merrily on its way. Sometimes it stopped for a moment, sometimes for minutes on end; always the journey resumed, as vagaries in the current dislodged it from whatever barred its path. Easy woke up again, and attended to the problem of breakfast. Later she prepared a rather unappetizing dinner—so she said, anyway. Aminadorneldo was polite about it, blaming the deficiencies on the synthesizers. There’s not too much one can do with amino acids, fats, and dextrose, even if vitamin powders are available for seasoning. Tenebra’s long night wore on; Raeker served another watch in the robot’s control room, bringing Nick and Fagin to a point which he believed was fairly close to the rest of the party from the village. A single night on a planet which takes nearly a hundred hours to rotate can become rather boring—though it doesn’t have to be, Raeker thought wryly, as he recalled the one when Swift had made his raid.

Things looked up after sunrise—unfortunately, since he was getting sleepy again. Nick definitely recognized the ground over which they were passing, and stated flatly that they would meet his friends in another two hours; Raeker’s relief arrived, and had to be given an extremely detailed briefing; and a message came from the communications room that the bathyscaphe seemed to have stopped.

“Will you please ask Lieutenant Wellenbach if he can have visual communication rigged up between his office and this room?” Raeker asked the messenger who brought this information. “It begins to look as though I’ll have to be talking to the bathyscaphe and my pupils at the same time in the near future.”

“Certainly, sir,” replied the messenger. “There’ll be no particular difficulty about that, I’m sure.”

“All right. I’m going up to the comm room now to hear Easy’s report; I’ll come back here when the set is rigged.”

“But shouldn’t you get some sleep, Doctor?” asked his relief.

“I should, but I can’t afford to for a while. You stay on duty after I come back, and stop me if I start to do anything really silly.”

“All right.” The graduate student shrugged his shoulders. Raeker knew he was not being very sensible, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the scenes of action at the moment. He headed for the communication chamber at top speed.

Rich and Aminadabarlee were there. The human diplomat had apparently calmed his Drommian colleague down, at least for the time being, since Raeker’s entry produced no fireworks. Easy was speaking as the biologist came in, and he said nothing until she had finished.

“…minutes since we last moved. It’s no lighter outside, but we’re not being rocked so hard; I think the current is weaker. It’s after sunrise, if I’ve been keeping track of time properly, so I guess the water’s boiling away.” She paused, and Raeker made his presence known.

“I take it, Easy, that neither you nor ’Mina saw any living creatures in the water while you were drifting.”

“Nothing but plants, or what I guess were plants.”

“How about right now?”

“Still nothing.”

“Then my guess is you haven’t yet reached the ocean. There were definitely animals there, according to Nick— of course, I suppose they might be frightened by your lights. Would you be willing to put them out for five minutes or so, then turn them on suddenly to catch anything which might have approached?”

“All right, as long as you don’t mind the control room lights on. There aren’t any windows here, so they shouldn’t matter. I’d be afraid to turn them out; I might hit the wrong switch in the dark when it was time to turn them on again.”

“You’re quite right. I never thought of that.”

“I’ve thought of a lot of things the last three weeks, down here.”

For an instant the light-hearted mask she had been holding for the benefit of her young companion slipped a trifle, and all the men saw a miserable, terrified twelve-year-old whose self-control was near its limit. Rich bit his lip and clenched his fists; the other human beings avoided his eyes, Aminadabarlee showed no emotion; Raeker wondered whether he felt any. Then the mask was back in place, and the merry-hearted youngster they had all known before the accident turned to the Drommian child.

“ ’Mina, will you go to the window in the big lab? Call when you’re there, and I’ll turn off the outside lights.”

“All right, Easy.” The long body crossed the men’s field of view and vanished again. Then his piping voice came from the other room, and the girl’s fingers flicked the light switches.

“Is it dark outside now, ’Mina?”